Note: This is repurposed from my old blog. New food/drink ideas coming soon! Gotta upload images from my camera and find time to cook!
When James was deployed I got a request to bake cake-in-a-jar, one of his soldiers had received a few so I thought I would give it a shot. I will say that I did buy big jars which resulted in me having to make the whole cake recipe in two parts (since I thought I would just half it to fill them, alas nope). So definitely take jar size into account when deciding how much to make of a recipe. Fortunately it was a simple recipe so it didn’t take too long to whip up another batch.
Overall it was simple, here’s how to get tasty cakes in a jar!
- The final product
The first thing I did was grease the jars with butter. It was a bit messy, but definitely necessary.
I used a recipe from Epicurious. Since it was a pineapple upside down cake I put a brown sugar mix, ring of pineapple and a maraschino cherry in the middle on the bottom of the jar. The pineapple rings are a bit big so to make sure that they fit I cut them in half and then placed in the jar.
Then came making the batter. Once complete, pour the batter into jars. You’ll want them about half full but not much more so that when it rises it doesn’t bake over the top. One thing I will definitely suggest is clean up the rims before baking, this will help in the last step when you seal the jars. And they will look cleaner too. I could have also used a funnel but spooning it in seemed simpler.
- Baking in the oven.
While baking boil the tops of the jars in water. If someone knows exactly how long this actually needs to happen please share in the comments, because mine were in there for 45 minutes which seemed excessive.
- Boiling jar lids
Pull the cakes out of the oven when fully baked and top the jars with the hot lids. (I briefly dried the bottoms of the lids so the water would not drip onto the cake.) Let cool. The jars should seal this way. I had one that didn’t properly seal right and according to the recipient of the jars via mail, another one may not have either. But about a week after baking, they arrived safe and sound, and pretty good.
- This is the cake inverted onto a plate from the one jar that definitely did not seal properly. (I had to taste test.)
James said the cakes were okay. I also sent red velvet for his birthday with icing on the side, but those did not seal very well and weren’t that good. there is definitely a trick to that step that I need to conquer.
Anyone have success making cakes in jars? Any tips for the newbies out there? Any tried and true recipes? Share below!